Untitled - Council for British Archaeology

one gets a glimpse of the vibrancy of fluctuating colour that was a principal
characteristié of medieval pavements.
The central panels were made of geometric patterns very iimilar-tothose
in Prior Crauden's Chapel at Ely.. These are much larger coarser
elements than those constituting the first pavement. It is the fragmen
tary borders:together with tiles found loose in the room fill that are
cauSing great excitement.
Now that the post excavation programme is underway, some of the pod.
tential of a raretype of paving is being understood. What appears to
have survived/here are fragments of several naturalistic pictures made
up from specially shaped mosaic tiles just like the "Adam and Eve" or
"Fall" picture mosaic in front of the altar :In Prior Crauden's Chapel,
(Figure 1). Indeed, four tiles on the jumbled border at Warden exactly
match four tiles in the Ely "Fall", and were beyond doubt made from the
same template. They are Satan's face, hair and wing, together with
part of the Tree of Knowledge. In contrast to the Ely tiles, the Warden
ones have retained their full colour and other surface decoration. Thus
the-Ely pavement allows us to reconstruct one of the designs at Warden,
while the better preserved decoration on the Warden tiles gives an insight
into how the Ely pavement once lociked, Figure 2 (1).and (4).
Figure 1
Warden Abbey Mosaic
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